Pharmacist independent prescriber Jamie Moran, registration number 2072845, has received a 12-month suspension for accessing the “private telephone numbers of two patients” and contacting them on WhatsApp after they requested Mounjaro from an online pharmacy.
In a remote hearing on February 16-19, an FtP committee heard that he messaged Patient A on WhatsApp just “thirteen minutes” after reviewing and approving her medication request.
According to hearing documents, Moran’s initial text said “he was hoping that the receiver of the message was a person by the name of Aaron”, purporting that he was offering to “help with a recruitment interview”.
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A few weeks later Patient B requested a Mounjaro prescription and “within two hours” of receiving an email saying her order was being processed, she received a WhatsApp from Moran that was “identical” to the one Patient A got, the committee heard.
The regulator accepted that Moran had “no previous disciplinary findings against his name” and acknowledged that he “made early acceptances of his wrongdoing”.
But it stressed that he “abused the trust that was placed in him as a pharmacist by using private information for his own personal benefit”.
And it added that he “went on to use the private information to fabricate a WhatsApp message” to the two patients.
“Wasn’t thinking clearly”
Moran was working as a pharmacist independent prescriber for IQ Doctor in November 2024 when Patient A “submitted an online request for Mounjaro” and “uploaded photos of herself”, the document said.
He told the committee that he had accessed her personal details from this request and “wrote her number in a diary that he had next to him in the knowledge that he may decide to contact her”.
He claimed, however, that “he had not at this stage viewed her photographs” and that they “had not contributed to his decision to make contact”.
His initial message “led to an exchange of several WhatsApp messages” which included “a sharing of personal information, their thoughts, feelings, likes and dislikes”, it heard.
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Moran made comments about the patient’s WhatsApp profile picture and asked her for photographs to “demonstrate her progress” as they had been chatting about “healthy eating” and fitness, the document said.
But he said that he was simply “trying to be nice” and that he was “just happy to speak to someone that was neutral and friendly”, it added.
“I didn’t have any plans about where it was going to go [and] I wasn’t thinking clearly otherwise I wouldn’t have done this,” he told the committee, adding that he “was just happy to be having a conversation with somebody”.
“Friendly conversation”
According to the document, Moran “understood that his enthusiasm to see Patient A’s progress photographs may be interpreted as inappropriate”, but he stressed that it was “nothing more than friendly conversation”.
He added that he “had not had an intention to develop a sexual relationship with Patient A” but told the committee that he “didn’t handle [himself] well” and that he accepted “full responsibility for the inappropriateness of the conversations”.
In regard to Patient B, Moran also told the committee that he was “looking for someone to converse with” and that “he had no intention to pursue a sexual relationship”.
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“Engaging with Patient B was another attempt to build a connection to feel validated and to try and feel some normality,” he said, but admitted that he “deeply [regretted]” his actions.
The regulator heard that Moran’s messages only stopped after Patient A reported him to IQ Doctor and the GPhC.
He initially “denied any knowledge of the WhatsApp messages” and was “immediately suspended” from work, but less than a week later he admitted to contacting the two patients as he wanted to “take full accountability for his actions”, the document said.
“Loss of public confidence”
The regulator accepted that Moran had “shown remorse for his behaviour and taken steps to remediate his actions”.
But it stressed that the initial fabricated WhatsApp had “been borne out of a conversation that [he] had with another person”, meaning there had been “some planning...in relation to the content of the initial message”.
It also noted that his “pattern of behaviour” only came to a stop “because Patient A reported [him] to IQ Doctor” and the GPhC.
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The GPhC determined that while Moran has demonstrated “partial insight, remorse and remediation, this can be developed further”.
It decided that “a lengthy period of suspension ought to redress the loss of public confidence” and demonstrate to the public that his conduct “had been wholly unacceptable”.
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The regulator concluded that “a period of suspension for 12 months is appropriate and proportionate” with the requirement that a “review hearing” be held “before the period of suspension comes to an end”.
Read the determination in full here.
